Rudolf Nureyev: The Life - Softcover

Kavanagh Julie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141029692 ISBN 13: 9780141029696

Publisher: Penguin, 2008

Synopsis

Born on a train in Stalin's Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet's first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement - both on and off stage. Nureyev's achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov's thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor's wife; defected to the West in l961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; gave his rabid sexuality full reign; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and, staged Russia's unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. Julie Kavanagh's uncompromising and magnificent biography, ten years in the making, is a brilliant tribute to a superstar the world can never forget.

About this title

About the Author:

Julie Kavanagh trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School, and is the author of Secret Muses: The Life of Frederick Ashton. She has worked as ballet critic of The Spectator; Arts Editor of Harpers & Queen; and London Editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She is married to the ex-Royal Ballet dancer, now dance film maker, Ross MacGibbon, and has two sons.

Review:

Magnificent...comprehensive and compulsively readable -- Simon Callow * The Guardian * The definitive biography, a gripping account of an extraordinary life -- Lynn Barber * Telegraph * She writes with flair and abundance * The Sunday Times * Undoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory * Sunday Telegraph * The definitive biography, a gripping account of an extraordinary life -- Lynn Barber * Telegraph *

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0141029692
• ISBN 13: 9780141029696
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 848